Two definitions of "cliche"

 Two definitions of “cliché” 

The following, dated Tuesday (May 8) arrived yesterday:

Dear Ted,

     I am writing you as a way of clarifying what I’ve been thinking about. And I am writing you because you are of the few of my friends that would care about what I might be thinking. Not that I blame any of the others. Let’s face it, I don’t have a reputation as a thinker.

     Moreover, I am thinking about what next in my life? - a matter of even less interest to others than almost anything else. This comes up because I don’t think I’m going to make a living as a doodler. I’m better at doodling than thinking for sure . . . but not much.

     It’s true I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to make a living. My blessed parents will keep me until they die. Then, they will leave me enough to keep me until I die. Then, there will be some left over for my “heirs and assigns” if I have any. (I’m not thinking I will.)

     But that brings me to my point if I have one, at least my point of departure. I’ve met a woman. We’ve been seeing each other for a while. We’ve decided we’re going to see each other for a while longer. She may even move into “the commune”* though she may not. Alvah.

     She bartends three or four nights a week (then sleeps over here because it’s a lot nearer than her place). And she makes jewelry out of junk, stuff left lying about on the street. And she sells it.

     That’s the point of departure. Or those are. I am giving up doodling, at least as a livelihood, and I am taking on Alvah without having a livelihood. So, I keep hearing in my head how one door is closing but then another is opening up. It’s a cliché, I know. But is it a cliché because it’s true? That’s one way a saying becomes a cliché. It’s repeated over and over and over again because it applies. But another way is that it’s repeated over and over again because people wish it did.

The letter ends here, midway down a page. So, this morning I called Mel.

     “I have a letter from you,” I said.

     “Yeah.”

     “It just . . . stops.”

     “Yeah,” he said again. “Sorry.”

     “So,” I began without knowing what I was going to say.

     “Yeah,” he said a third time. “I was just done.”

     “You don’t seem done,” I said.

     “Well,” he said, “I probably should have signed it ‘Love, Mel,’ or something.”

05.11.18

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 * See here, then follow the continuation links.